Weekly Recap + what we ate: When things go awry

The Daylights Savings Time change has kicked my butt this year. I’ve been going to bed too late, getting up too late. Luckily the kids were all early risers to start, so even though they’re getting up later than usual, they still have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. I think we are almost back on track now, though that 7:15am piano lesson on Wednesday of last week was brutal. This week I’m having the kids sleep in their “tomorrow” clothes on Tuesday night so it’s one less step in the morning before piano lessons.

Last week was my last week off contract before I start prepping the stage management department for another show. It ended up being very full. Monday I met up with a friend at the Duck Decoy Museum. It was kind of fun to revisit this museum, which we chose because it was roughly half way between my friend and me. It was nice to catch up, go for a stroll along the Chesapeake Bay and grab a bite to eat. My friend used to work in opera too; we started out in the business together – me as an intern and her as an Assistant Stage Manager. I’ve known her for over twenty years. We talked a lot about opera stuff and life stuff. It’s funny to see how some of the people we worked with when we were both just starting out are now pretty important in the opera world, some even running opera companies. My friend was a pretty big deal too, but is taking a step back to re-evaluate things. Sometimes I think back and feel so lucky that the colleagues I worked with twenty years ago are, twenty years later, still good friends.

That was the big adventure for the week. I spent most of the week going to appointments and prepping supertitles for a voice recital. I can be pretty efficient about prepping titles because it is a lot of steps and I like to have them done well in advance of the recital, but for some reason this time I just couldn’t focus and ended up doing it pretty last minute, which I don’t like. The was such an interesting recital program. There were songs in English, German, French, Chinese, Uhygur, Farsi, and Quechua (an indigenous language of Peru). Making those titles were certainly challenging. Even though the singer gives me the translations, I still have to match the translations to the music/text, which is hard to do without having even a basic understanding of the language. google Translate can help some, though the Quechua song was definitely tough. On a whole, though, the titles for this recital was a really fun challenge. This is the super nerdy part of doing supertitles that I like.

Funny story – twenty minutes before the recital, the pianist’s iPad wouldn’t turn on. All his music was on that iPad. I gather there was a lot of panic backstage and mad photo copying of music. You wouldn’t have guessed anything was off during the recital. Until we came to the last piece in the first half. They singer and pianist started the song. They got about half a page in, and then stopped. And the pianist looked at the audience and started speaking. He explained about the iPad not turning on and all the help they got to get a hold of the music for the program. But then, they didn’t realize until just this moment that the music he had been given for this last piece was in a different key than what they had rehearsed.

“If it was just a half step, or a whole step or even a third different, I would have just transposed it as we went,” he said, which made my head explode just a little bit. But I guess that’s why he’s a professional pianist. “But,” he went on, “the music is a a whole fourth higher and that’s beyond me. So I don’t know what to do.”

And the singer said, “Let’s just try it a fourth higher. I’ll sing it a fourth higher. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll come back with a different solution after intermission.”

For folks who aren’t musicians – a fourth higher is a HUGE difference. Vocally it just sits in a completely different place in the voice. It’s like the difference between Elphaba and Glinda. Or, I don’t know between a turkey and a hummingbird.

But they did it. The song still sounded great, just a different feel than if she had sung it in the lower key. At intermission, the pianist’s iPad started working again, so the second half proceeded without incident, but what a memorable recital it was. This was my last recital with this group for the season, and I’m a little sad that I won’t get to work on another recital until the fall.

Weekend – We are in a little lull with kids activities now that the 13 year old is done with basketball season and the 8 year old finished his goalkeeping clinic. There are still plenty of other activities but for the first time in ages, our afternoons were pretty open. I did things like fold laundry. We played board games on Saturday night – Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza while the Husband made dinner, and after dinner, we opened a game that Santa brought for Christmas. It’s called Flamecraft and the jury’s still out on this game. It has a billion pieces and takes a while to set up and each turn is a million steps. I kept pointedly asking the Husband, “Why did Santa think this game was a good idea?” Despite my grumbling, the family took to it. The premise is easy enough that the 8 and 5 year old could play, as long as we weren’t keeping score or trying to be strategic or anything. And the game is beautifully illustrated. The kids seemed to like it, so maybe it will stay in our rotation.

Sunday was more exciting than I wanted. After the 5 year old’s agility class, we went to a bakery to pick up some treats and then to the grocery store. As I was pulling into the Giant parking lot, I started to smell something funny and I thought maybe it was just that corner of the parking lot, but then I noticed all this smoke. I thought it was coming from my exhaust, but an elderly gentleman in the parking lot waved at me and yelled, “YOUR CAR IS OVER-HEATING!”

I pulled into a spot and called the Husband because I figured he would know what to do. But then the nice elderly gentleman knocked on my window and said, “Do you want me to take a look?” Now I very much believe in the grace of good Samaratian and said, “yes please!”

So we popped the hood of the car and there was all this smoke and water, which I guess means it really was steam that was coming out of my car. The elderly gentleman (who had the name Phil embroidered on his shirt – he was clearly coming from work) starts looking around. Then he makes a comment about what a cute little kid I have in my car. And I agree that she’s very cute and ask him if he has kids.

“Well,” he says to me, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve lived with four women in my life and I have grand kids ranging in age from 18 to 24. But I love kids.”

Then he noticed that the radiator hose had become disconnected. He asked me a bunch of questions and said, “You should get that check out. Did you call your husband?”

Now modern woman that I am, I had a moment of pause when he asked that. But then, I realized, Phil wasn’t wrong – the first call I made was to the Husband. Is it sexist if it’s true?

Phil went back to his car to get a pair of pliers so he could re-check the hose, but first he asked, “Can I give your daughter a toy?” I said yes, because I figured why not, and he comes back with a park of piers and a stuffed animal -a cat that squeaked when you squeezed it. Of course the 5 year old was delighted. (Side note- when the 13 year old found out that a random stranger had given the 5 year old a stuffed animal, she asked, “Is he trying to use her as a drug mule?” That made me laugh so hard.) Phil reattached the hose and told me to fill the coolant and take it to my mechanic immediately. And then my guardian angel was on his way.

Sunday afternoon, I had two friends over for lunch. These were the friends whom I went pottery painting with two weeks ago. Our pottery pieces were done, so one friend picked them up and they came over for lunch and pottery hand off. I thought my flower pot turned out very cute:

Before
After!

For lunch, I made a batch of the blogger favorite curry chick pea salad, which we ate with olive bread and cucumbers. One of my friends brought some pastries from a new Asian American bakery, Rose Ave., and the pastries were divine. My favorite was the Ube cream Queen Aman. Queen Aman is one of my favorite pastries, and to add ube cream… so delicious.

After the friends left, the Husband and I tried to go out to look at blinds and mattresses, two things we are in dire need of. But the blind place closed early on Sundays and the Macy’s near us didn’t have mattresses. Bummer. Feeling a little defeated, we didn’t know what to do and were going to head straight home. But then we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens instead. So we had a nice walk through the park to the gardens and back. The gardens are still very brown and grey, but there are bits of colour starting to pop up and it made for a nice pick me up. Also, exciting was that we left the kids at home to do this. Now that the oldest is legally old enough to stay home with the two little kids, the Husband and I have on occasion gone out to run errands or what not, just the two of us. It’s been so amazing to be able to walk out the door without a kid in tow. Milestones!

Speaking of things gone awry (because things always happen in 3) – After my fall while running last week, I noticed something interesting. I didn’t cut my chin, but it did start to scab over. I’m not sure what is up with that? Also after a couple days, my chin started to bruise really really badly. Like it looked like I rubbed my chin in graphite in an ill attempt to draw a goatee on myself. It was pretty distinct. I was a little self conscious about it and thought, maybe I should cover it up with make-up. But that would require buying make-up and figuring out how to use it. I had no interest in any of that. So I just let the chin get blacker and bluer and went on with life. I did have a thought that I should just head people off at the pass and reference it first – “How are you doing?” “Oh, you know – ” vague hand wave ” – just a little accident. Ugh. How are you?” But I just let it be.

What fascinated me was there were people who would ask my about my black and blue chin and the people who didn’t say anything. And I’m not talking about strangers in the street. These were people who I see every day and are friendly with. I’m sure there’s no correlation here for those who asked “WHAT HAPPENED???” and those who didn’t say anything. But it did get me thinking about whether or not I would say something if I saw someone with a huge wound? I mean when I see a friend or colleague come in with a boot or crutches, I usually will ask what happened. But would it make a difference it’s on the face? Do people have the same internal monologue as I do? “Ooh that looks bad. i hope they’re okay. Will I make them self-conscious if I say something? Should I let them reference it first? I don’t want to pretend nothing is going on – I might seem unobservant or uncaring…” Or maybe it’s just me and most people if they don’t say anything just didn’t notice? There’s no right or wrong answer here, of course; just something that was rattling around in my brain this week.

Grateful For:

-Seeing the first spring flowers coming up. Hyacinths along our front walk.

-Basketball courts at the park and a body that still can shoot a basket. A couple days last week, I met the 13 year old at the basketball courts after school and we shot baskets for 30-45 minutes. Is there anything as satisfying as making a basket? I’m bad enough at basketball that it still gives me a little rush every time the ball sails though the hoop.

-Clean sheets on my bed.

-My father’s help with the Chinese songs in the recital program that I worked on. There was one song in Chinese and the English text I got was matched to Chinese characters, but the music had pin yin (the romanization of the characters), so I couldn’t match the English to the music. I sent the Mandarin text to my dad, and he talked me through the characters so that I could match the English translation to the pin yin in the score. I’m so glad I had him for help.

-For that matter – I’m really grateful that my parents spoke Mandarin to me when I was a a child. My Mandarin isn’t great, but I can get by, and I did notice when we were in Taiwan it got easier with each day. When I was prepping for the recital last week, once I heard the Chinese songs being sung, I understood enough of the words that I knew I was on the right track. I can only read a handful of characters and would loved to read/write more, but it’s a really hard language to learn. But I’m really grateful that I have a little bit of the language in me. Also grateful for the little French that I have. It’s enough that I can help the 8 year old with his homework. Every time I heard people speaking Mandarin or French out and about and maybe understand some of it, I think about how cool languages are and how neat it is that people communicate. Also I found this super interesting about what animals sound like in different languages.

-Friends that invite the 13 year old out to shows and to shoot hoops. I know it’s hard for her to always be tied to activities that her younger siblings can take part in, so I’m grateful when she has friends (and their parents) that invite her out and come pick her up and bring her home. This week, she had invites to go play basketball t the Rec Center and to see a concert at a local high school. These things would have been hard for us to take the little kids to so I’m grateful that she has friends that include her in plans. Also I think it’s nice to switch up the dynamic between the kids once in a while by having it be just one or two kids at home.

-This green messenger bag:

We bought this bag 13 years ago to use as a diaper bag when the oldest child was born. At the time the options for diaper bags were kind of frilly and pretty and the Husband wanted something gender neutral and utilitarian. So we went to REI and this bag had all the features we wanted. This bag has gone on so many trips with us, on flights, over oceans. And it’s still in great shape. Anyhow, ironically, I had been using an old diaper bag to carry my laptop around. The diaper bag had been an impulse purchase – it had been on super sale and looked really cute, but when it arrived it wasn’t super functional as a diaper bag so I put it in a closet for years until I realized that it actually fit my laptop perfectly. So I’ve been using that yellow diaper bag for my laptop. Anyhow after many years, the faux leather on the yellow diaper bag is starting to flake so I decided it was time to retire it, and I just started carrying my laptop around in a tote bag, which isn’t great. Then last week, I was cleaning out a closet and I unearthed the green messenger bag that had been living in the closet for a couple year what with COVID and the kids being out of diapers and all that. Well the green messenger/former diaper bag was perfect for fitting my lap top and it has now been put back into service. I’m just a little tickled that for years I used a diaper bag for my laptop and a messenger bag for a diaper bag. And now it feels like life has come full circle. (Also – I do NOT miss the days when leaving the house required packing as if for an Arctic expedition – food, toys, diapers, wipes, change of clothes…. So much simpler to leave the house now, though the Husband will say that I still pack too much to leave the house. But he’s a guy and perhaps doesn’t believe in having emergencies outside the house.)

-Phil who helped me with my car in the Giant parking lot and gave the 5 year old a stuffed animal.

Looking Forward To:

-The 8 year old’s French concert this week. Every year, all the French Immersion classes at his school put on a concert where each class sings a song. It’s pretty cute. I do have to find the kid a pair of black pants. But he has first communion later this year and I’m told he needs black pants for that too, so hoepfully I can find somethign he can wear more than once.

-Peak Bloom! There is an updated prediction for peak bloom – it is now predicted for March 28th – 31st. I’m not yet in rehearsal, so I think I should be able to go see the cherry blossoms at some point.

-New glasses! I finally made an appointment with the eye doctor, updated my prescription. I am VERY near sighted, the optometrist said. I knew that, but I think I’ve gotten even worse since my last appointment…. three years ago. Luckily my far sightedness has remained about the same, so I didn’t bother to get new sunglasses since I use those just for driving. I chose new every day glasses, that I’m kind of excited about – they have red rims. They aren’t as bold as I wanted, but I need nose pads on my glasses, and that limits the options. At any rate, the new glasses will arrive in two weeks and I’m really excited because I currently can’t distinguish betwen 6 and 8 on my crossword puzzle squares and THIS IS IMPORTANT.

-Listening to this audiobook:

Hearing Dame Judi Dench’s words (she doesn’t actually read her own part, Barbara Flynn does, doing a remarkable job), as she talks about the plays of Shakespeare is both hilarious and revelatory. Highly recommend for any Shakespeare or theatre enthusiasts.

What We Ate:
Monday: Mac and Cheese and hot dogs.

Tuesday: Chicken mole tacos. I made this mole sauce from Rick Bayless. It made so much mole sauce, that I froze three jars and I can’t wait to eat more. It makes for a super easy meal – poach chicken thighs for 15 minutes, shredded and tossed it with the mole sauce. Tortillas, home made pico de gallo, sour cream, and avocado.

Wednesday: Fried catfish sandwiches. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Pork and eggplant stir fry with noodles. The husband Cooked. This was very tasty.

Friday: I was working so I had a salad at the work cafeteria. And a chocolste chip cookie. They have the best chocolate chip cookies at work. The family at home had take out pizza, wings, and watched Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday: Breakfast sandwiches, cucumbers, and fruit.

Sunday: Tortellini and gnocchi. Some with red sauce some plain.

Hope you have a lovely week. Has anything gone awry for you lately?

February 2025 in Haikus

Blustery winds gust,
Daring me to retreat home.
Bundled, I persist.

A sick day in bed –
Clouds floating by my window,
And clouds stuff my head

Bodies buried deep
in blankets, tissues and coughs,
This hushed and sick house.

Last little snow mound
Unmelting, dirty, and gray
Stubbornly solid.

Plastic bags aloft,
Urban flocks spiraling up,
lift towards the sky.

Art and politics
Will walk together only if we
move with open hearts,

Such visions we see
When we at last lift our eyes
from tasks that weigh us.

This picture was inspired by an article I read about an artist who takes pictures of clouds and draws whimsical drawings over them.I loved the idea and have started doing it myself. Such a good way to take a little brain break sometimes.

Is there still stubborn snow where you are?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Five years ago

I had a thought that I should write a list of gentle aspirations for March, but then I realized that I accomplished NONE of my gentle aspirations for February. So if you want to know what’s on my March Goals list, you can just go back and read the February list. It’s all the same stuff. I just never did it last month. I take that back – we did get the kids to write Valentine’s Day cards. And I did make it to one of the 13 year old’s middle school basketball game. (Though that might have actually been this month and not last month.)

So mid March 2020 was when we all retreated from public life. Well, those of us who weren’t considered “essential”. The five year anniversary of the start of the COVID pandemic is making me reflect on those times. I’ve been struggling to put my thoughts into words, but then Daria had a lovely reflective post, prompted by this podcast, and I’m going to use her questions. I guess for my purposes, I think of the thick of the pandemic as being from March 12th 2020, when my show was cancelled up til probably September 2022, when it felt like we were doing opera again, albeit with masks and precautions in place.

Watching for the trash truck! Highlight of the week.

What do you remember most?
I remember being home with my kids a lot, and not being able to go to work. So many people in my industry pivoted and started producing opera/theatre online or in other venues. At the time, I had a six month old, a three year old, and a 8 year old. I couldn’t think beyond just keeping everyone going at home and struggled to figure out how to have structure in our days. Thank goodness for the internet. Other things I remember, off the top of my head:
-sewing masks as part of a church mission
-pumping and donating breastmilk
-lots of cardboard box creations
-struggling with online schooling for the oldest child and not knowing how hard to be on her for constantly surfing the internet when she should be paying attention in class
-Lots of time outdoors. Exploring new parks and trails.
-RBG dying and taking the two girls down to pay respects.
-The Husband being at home for a little bit, setting up a desk and computer wherever he could and then going back to the office the moment they let him. (I don’t blame him on that one.)
-The Husband doing all the grocery shopping so that we could limit contact.
-taking a drawing class online – it was such a great creative and social outlet.
-Borrowing so many books from the library. The library setting up a system to request books for pick up.
-Masks. Wearing masks. I remember the first time I put on a mask. I was in line at Costco and I thought, “Well, here goes. I should probably put this mask on.” It felt like a big step, admitting that there really was something going on.
-Once we started producing opera again, arguing with singers about, “Yes, you do have to wear a mask in rehearsal.”
-The not knowing when things would end. What “end” even meant.
-So much time together as a family.
-Figuring out Zoom. Having a Zoom birthday party for the Husband.
-The vaccine, finally getting vaccinated.
-The youngest participating in a vaccine trial.
-The show we did in May 2022 when people were still getting COVID in large numbers and every performance there would be a list with all the people who were out that night. Even the stage manager got COVID and I had to bump up to call the show and we called every available stage manager we knew to come in and cover my assistant stage manager track, and ended up with a patchwork of stage managers to cover the run. There was one show where no one was available for the whole evening, so we just hired someone to cover my track for the first half of the show. That to me was just bonkers – that we had a sub come in for half a show.

What led up to here?
I remember in February hearing about a virus that was proving deadly and spreading quickly, but it was not yet in our county. And then on March 12th, suddenly being aware of this phrase, “social distancing.” I asked my co-worker, “What does social distancing mean anyway?” And she didn’t know and we went on with our tech session. We were in the theatre at the time, in tech for an opera that I was very excited to work on. It was the day of our first orchestra rehearsal onstage and we were at the theatre that afternoon setting lighting levels. On a break, my co-worker came up to me and said, “Six feet.”
“What?” I asked, having forgotten our earlier conversation.
“Social distancing is six feet apart.”
Okay, I thought, I can do that. And then a couple hours later, my big boss came into the theatre where we all were working on lighting cues and said that the show was being cancelled and we should all go home.
And the next day, we were told that the schools would be closed for two weeks.
And that’s how it all started for us.
And then I made the mistake of going to Costco on March 14th. That trip took two hours and I couldn’t get paper towels or eggs.

Who went through this with you?
My family- the Husband and the three kids. My mother, who had planned to come help out with the new baby for one month and ended up staying with us for five. My mom’s group, via Zoom and masked distanced walks. My friend K, who decided that we needed a weekly socially distanced happy hour. All the teachers and educators who taught kids through zoom. My online art class. The whole world. I think that’s what was amazing about this is that it was world wide. Everyone experienced it differently, but we all experienced it.

Where did you go through this event?
At home. In the kitchen. In the dining room. In the living room. In our backyard. At parks. On hiking trails. At mass vaccination sites. At drive through testing sites. And eventually, back at the theatre.

How did you feel then?
Bewildered and numb – I was just waiting for someone to tell me what to do and I tried not to think about things too much. Angry. I was angry a lot at the people around me for not being easier to live with. Frustrated with the sameness of every day. Grateful. Grateful for the things that did come to us, grateful for the ways that we could isolate and be our own bubble. Grateful that the Husband could still work. Grateful that my mother was with us and toilet trained the middle child. Tired. I had a six month old who had to be nursed to sleep at the time. Worried. For my grandfather who didn’t believe in vaccines. For my father living on his own because my mother was with us. Happy too, though, that we could still have some good times and adventures.

What changed in your world?
Well, I couldn’t go to work anymore and was home all the time with the kids. That was probably the big thing. But also I think there was a re-thinking in my industry about work-life balance. People who were getting burnt out from going from gig to gig to gig without a pause started to take a step back and ask if it was all worth it. There was a mass exodus of mid-career stage managers from the industry.
I think also, we became more aware of the health of people around us – I’ll always remember the quote I heard, “It used to be we coughed to cover up a fart. Now we fart to cover up a cough.” I think we became much more aware of how to stay healthy in large groups of people – masks, hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, staying home if you’re sick. I mean we should already have been doing this but it became downright uncivilized if one didn’t do it in the wake of the pandemic.

What changed in you?
I always find these questions hard because I feel I lack the self awareness to really answer it. I don’t really think of myself on a pre-ordained path, so I don’t really see it as changing. I kind of see myself as flowing and bending as life goes on and there was a lot of flow and bend in 2020-2022
Here’s one thing – I stopped worrying about the oldest kid’s grades. (I was actually interviewed for a story in the Washington Past about this) I realized that in elementary school I just wanted her to be learning, and I had to stop caring about the A. I’m a little more concerned about her grades now that she is in middle school, I will admit, but the pandemic gave me a good insight into my expectations for elementary school.
I wouldn’t really call this a change, but I also had to shift my mind from being a work out of the house mom to being a stay at home mom. That took a bit of adjustment. But I was also glad for the time with the baby because I had gone back to work when she was just a week old, and I hadn’t really had time with her.

What good came out of this event?
I think we learned that family is important. That as long as we were stuck in this thing together, things would be okay.
One thing work-wise that came out of this was I started to do supertitle work. It was one of the first jobs that was offered me when my company started doing opera again. I hadn’t really thought about doing supertitle work before and it turns out I actually love it.
When I did come back to work, working from home was acceptable. I remember going back to work after having a baby in 2017 and 2019 and asking if I could work, from home on the days I didn’t have to be in rehearsal or at the theatre and it was like pulling teeth. But after the pandemic, it was something that everyone was allowed to do. Well until now.
I started a blog. Yup, this here is a pandemic blog, started in April 2020. And this blog has been a wonderful outlet for all the things in my head, and has also lead to my discovering a great community of people who also share what’s knocking around in their heads.
I started running. When the local Taiwan School opened up for Sunday Mandarin classes again, I enrolled the middle child. The last time we took language classes at the Taiwan School, parents had to sit in the classrooms, but in September 2021, they did not let parents sit in the classrooms anymore. So I had 90 minutes of time to kill while the middle child was in class. I decided to start running. I didn’t really have much of an exercise routine before that, maybe some yoga and a few post-partum fitness classes. But I figured I was approaching my mid 40s and I should start something. I don’t love running, but it’s a pretty low barrier for entry, so I do it. And I usually feel better when I do.

What would you do differently?
I don’t know that I have a good answer to this questions, because I think we all did the best we could with the information we had. I guess one thing is I would try harder to reach out to friends. We had good friends whom we didn’t see for a whole year, and they live two miles away. I think I would have tried harder to reach out even in a distanced way. I loved our little family unit, but I think it’s also important to nurture all relationships, to check in on people, form connections.

How do you feel about the pandemic now?
I think back on 2020-2022 and it feels a little surreal to me that we went through that. That the world got quiet and empty. That there were special early morning shopping hours at the grocery store for the immunocompromised. That people really became innovative about how to do the things that they were used to doing. When I think of historic milestones that I’ve lived through, there’s 9/11 and there’s the COVID pandemic. I also think right now in America also feels a bit like a historic moment as well with the dismantling of the Federal government. All these events have that same sense of bewilderment and confusion and upheaval. March 13th will always be a “Where were you when…” moment for me.
One thing that the current climate is making me realize, though, is just how much kindness and community materialized when we couldn’t gather. There were certainly events of hate and fear during COVID, but there was a reaction to it, a sense that people wanted to set things right. I don’t get that sense right now. Right now I feel as if America is dividing from each other and the rest of the world.
It’s funny, we were trying to explain the pandemic to the two younger kids the other day. They have no memory of those years, but the oldest was 8 at the time and very much remembers it. I asked her to tell her younger siblings about it, and she said, “The pandemic was the most amazing time. We got to stay home all the time and be together and watch lots of tv and screens.” I think that’s a good perspective to remember – even though it was such a stressful and anxious time for me, the 8 year old was actually loving life. I do wonder what will be the legacy of that two and a half years of pandemic life.

Where we started – March 2020
Where we got to – Sept. 2022

Funny Story – This morning as I was driving the kids to piano lessons, we passed the beltway, which at 7:15 in the morning was already bumper to bumper. “Look,” I said, “All those people going to their office.”

“Are they going to print things?” asked the 5 year old.

“No, they’re going to work,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said, a little confused. “And then they will go back to their houses?”

“Well, no. They now they have to work in their office.”

“Oh. That’s silly,” she said.

I think about all the ways the world changed, has changed. I mean the world is always changing, right? But it seems like there have been some big shifts in the past five years. The 5 and 8 year old don’t really know a world where going to the office every day was the norm for most people, even though the Husband does it. They don’t think twice if they are asked to put on a mask when they are cough-y. They submit to nose swabs and shots without a second thought. I feel like these little things are what part of what remain of those years we spent in lockdown, even for people who don’t remember it.

On that note, I’m leaving you with this, which made me laugh out loud and then I sent it to all my friends who are trying to do all the things while pretending everything is fine:

I don’t actually have Instagram, so excuse the weird screen shot, but it’s from Emotional Club’s Instagram feed.

Grateful For:

-Whatsapp calling and friends. I have a friend who moved to Oman because her husband works in the foreign service and was posted there. They’re halfway through their posting and I really miss her. We’ve been texting back and froth frequently, but this week we decided to have a phone call, which we did through Whatsapp. It was amazing! We talked for 90 minutes, catching up on all the things.

-After school park time. Sunshine and warmer weather.

-That I’m okay after a fall. I tripped on my run through the woods and fell face down on a huge smooth slab of rock. I for sure thought that I was going to be a bloody mess, but I wasn’t, luckily. I was a little sore and shaken, but otherwise okay. 24 hours later, my chin is black and blue and looks awful, but at least I didn’t have to get stitches or knock out my teeth or anything.

-On that note – I’m grateful that I started back up with running. I want three times (well, two and a half – I kind of abandoned the third run after that fall) and it wasn’t that painful. Last year I ran all through the winter, even in 20 degree weather, but I didn’t have the will to do it this year. It feels nice to be back at it after a break, though.

-Cake! I made another cake. This one was an Old Fashioned Donut Bundt Cake. It tasted just like a cake donut. If you like cake donuts, make this cake! Sign of the time- I had originally planned to make another cake, but that cake called for six eggs. What with eggs being expensive still, I decided to make this cake that only took four. And even then I asked myself if that was a good use of eggs. It was.

-The 13 year old’s basketball coach. Basketball season is over and I’m really grateful for the coach and referees that made the season possible.

-High School Musicals – We went to the high school production of the musical The Secret Garden this weekend. It was SOOOOOO good! The Secret Garden is my favorite musical and I figured that would either make seeing a high school production either a blissful experience or a grin-and-bear-it experience. Here’s the thing about this musical – The music is gorgeous, so heartbreakingly beautiful. Also it’s not easy and it’s very exposed and the ensembles are tricky. You have to know how to sing to pull it off – none of this sort of speak-sing stuff that you can maybe get away with with some other musicals. The kids in this show had such beautiful voices. And so much spunk and personality onstage. And the production was so well put together – some minor technical difficulties as one would expect at this level, but nothing major. And there were some really lovely directing choices. I think it’s going to be one of my favorite theatre experiences this year.

-The smell of witch hazel blooming in our front yard. That floral spicy smell greeting me as I come home.

-Finding just the right books. I popped by the Library’s used bookstore last week. I had meant to donate a bag of books, only the paper bag split as I was taking it to the car and the I could only find parking in the far parking lot and didn’t want to carry all those books in a split paper bag to the used bookstore. So I’ll deal with that another time. But as long as I was there, I figured I’d do some browsing and I lucked out because I found two books that were on my “want to find” list. One is Nelson Mandela’s memoir that I want to read in anticipation of a trip to South Africa later this year, and the other book is the memoir of Renee Fleming that I wanted to to get for the 13 year old because Fleming is her favorite opera singer. It’s my lucky day! I also picked up two comic strip collections because the kids really love reading those- one Calvin and Hobbes and one for The Boondocks. Does anyone remember the Boondocks? It was this hilariously edgy comic strip from the early 2000s.

Looking Forward To:
-Lenten Reading Group. Last year a friend invited me to a Lenten reading group and even though I’m not what anyone would call religious, I did enjoy doing the readings and thinking about how we can function with grace and kindness towards ourselves and other human beings. The group is meeting again this year, just three times, but I’m looking forward to it. The readings so far have seemed very apt in the times that we live in.

-Voice recital this week for which I’m doing super titles. It’s an eclectic program with lots of contemporary pieces and five or six different languages.

-Reading my library haul. After hitting up the library bookstore, I went to the library to pick up a hold and ended up coming away with a whole new stack of books to read and a cookbook:

What We Ate:
Monday: Swede and Red Lentil Soup. I had a rutabaga that our friend had passed a long to us from his CSA. Hot tip – googling recipes for “swede” (what the British call the Rutabaga) yields much more interesting (to me) recipes than googling “rutabaga”. I really liked this soup. I was the only one, though. Thankfully I made a batch of no-knead bread to go with it so people were still happy with dinner. Vegan. Except some of us put butter on the bread.

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos from New York Times Cooking. This was a surprisingly fast dinner – it was on the table in about twenty minutes. And with this meal we finished up the 6lb 13oz cabbage.

Wednesday: Salmon with Miso Rice and Ginger Scallion Vinaigrette from New York Times Cooking. First day of Lent, so a meat free dinner. This was really tasty and simple. Everyone liked it. Except one child who screamed that they didn’t like salmon and why didn’t I make catfish. But then proceeded to eat the rice with their hands. I don’t bother to make food that the kids will like because this is the sh*t I have to put up with. If I’m going to get yelled at, I might as well like the food that I’m eating.

Thursday: Sheet Pan Veggie Shawarma that I’ve seen linked on Suzanne’s blog. When I was reading this recipe, it struck me that it was very similar to the delicious Kabocha Squash and Apple Shawarma recipe that I got in my Purple Carrot meal box one time. So I added apples to the original recipe and made a zhoug sauce to go with it all. It was delicious. Except the 5 and 8 year olds who said they didn’t like vegetables so I told them they could make their own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which they did. Good, more Shawarma for me! Vegan.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made) and Glee.

Saturday: Pasta Salad made from Jenny Rosenstrach’s marinated beans as a base. Then I add tomatoes, cucumbers, pasta, and red onion. Vegan. Only once again some child rebelled and they had pasta with butter and parmesan cheese for dinner.

Sunday: leftovers and Ramen. Sunday is one of those days when I get to six o’clock and realize that, yes indeed the kids do need to eat dinner. At least the younger kids. The 13 year old fends for herself because she has evening swim clinic and needs to eat on the early side. So Sunday was ramen because it’s easy and fast. I added vegetables (the last of some napa cabbage that was in the fridge) and eggs to the ramen, and for my own bowl, I threw in a bunch of kimchi.

I hope you are having a lovely week. We are battling the time change here, but every day is better and there is more sunlight at the end of the day now.
Are you reflecting on the early days of the COVID pandemic now that it’s been 5 years? If you could tell March 2020 you something, what would it be? How would you describe those times to someone who didn’t have to live through it?


Books Read – February 2025

I read more books in February than I usually do, and a surprising number of non-fiction books. I’m trying to read more instead of doomscrolling, but it is hard these days…

What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher, read by the author – I found this book fascinating and grisly. There were so many details about how people die and the clues dead bodies leave behind. I particularly remember the part where Butcher talks about how bodies make a booming sound when they fall from high elevations because it’s the sound of the organs exploding. Butcher’s account of how her department mobilized during 9/11 is both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring. This book was more than just the details of her work, though – Butcher also writes about the very human aspects she encounters in her job, both the people she works with and the bodies she investigates. One thing that stuck with me is when she asked a seasoned medical examiner how she could do her work, looking at some really hard and sickening cases. Butcher got this advice:
“When you leave here each day surround yourself with things of betuy. Enjoy nature and art and food and music and love. Just do it, and don’t skip a day. Seriously.”

The Phoenix Bride by Natasha Siegel – Historical Fiction set in 1666 London, in the wake of the plague and on the eve of the Great Fire of London. Cecelia Thorowgood, mourning her husband’s death, has sunk into such a deep depression that her sister hires a Jewish doctor David Mendes to come treat her. David has come to London from Portugal so that he can practice his faith, and is trying to make a new life for himself even while battling memories and his own grief. Cecelia and David are drawn to each other despite the many reasons they can’t be together. Siegel’s prose is beautiful – delicate and precise – and I really liked all the historical details that she weaves into the novel. The plot itself is rather slight – this is for sure a character driven slow burn kind of novel, one that deals more with inner conflict than external conflict. I like that kind of book, particularly if it is rich in history, so I enjoyed this book a lot Also – the cover is beautiful.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach – There was a lot I really liked about this hugely popular book, but the initial set up – heroine goes to Rhode Island resort with plans to kill herself and find the whole resort reserved for a wedding – specifically the attempted suicide part, isn’t a trope that I like. Suicide and mental health that doesn’t actually get examined or unpacked kind of bothers me as a plot device – I felt like it was all handled in a rather breezy and pat way in this book. All that said, after the main character decides to move forward with not dying, and becomes enmeshed in the lives of the bride and groom to be, I thought the book was very astute and poignant and funny.

The Riddles of the Sphinx by Anna Shechtman – This book by crossword puzzle constructor Shechtmann is a combination of personal memoir and crossword puzzle history. I was hoping for more of the latter, and found the former to be the less interesting part of the book. Two thirds of this book was kind of a slog – she draws parallels between her anorexia and constructing crossword puzzles, which is an interesting point, but I wanted to know about crossword puzzles themselves. The middle section is a dense exploration of feminist writing/theory, only loosely tied to crossword puzzles. Here she has sentences like:
“In addition to recovering these false cognates and distorted etymologies, Penelope also accounted for the Laaden-like terms that were lost to English the in wake of Christian invasions…”
I am not smart enough to read books with sentences likes that. I mean the whole middle section reads like someone’s PhD thesis.
BUT the third section, when she looks at crossword puzzles and their place in popular culture – that was fascinating to me. I loved the inside look at what words and clues Will Shortz would deign suitable for a crossword puzzle, and what would be nixed as too niche. Shechtman also examines the issue of diversity in the crossword puzzle construction world and the gatekeeping that goes on for both constructors and solvers. I liked learning about crossword puzzle lingo – like a “natick” which is two obscure words that cross each other, making that combination unsolvable. This is the nerdy stuff I wanted to read the book for.

Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature’s Secrets of Longevity by Nicklas Brendborg, read by Joe Leat – The title of the books says it all. This was a slightly dry book that looks at the biology of aging. I was looking for something non-fiction and I guess this book had won a bunch of awards. To be honest aside from some fascinating tidbits, I didn’t find this book particularly enlightening or helpful.

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary, read by Carrie Hope Fletcher and Kwaku Fortune – I started this book when I was sick, looking for an easy romantic comedy to listen to in bed. The premise is adorable and a little gimmicky- Tiffy needs a place to live and answers Leon’s ad for someone to share his flat in an unique way. He has the flat from 9am to 6pm and she will live there from 6pm to 9am. Tiffy and Leon originally start communicating by leaving each other Post it Notes. I thought this book was pretty inventive- I wanted Tiffy and Leon to continue passing Post It notes forever, but they do eventually meet and romance novel type things happen. I liked that both Tiffy and Leon had lives and problems separate from each other, which made them multi-dimensional characters. I liked how they each had such different voices – even aside from the excellent narrators, you could tell that they were different people, which doesn’t always come across in dual narration books. This books worked really well for me on audio.

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery – For Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. I thought this was a charming, hilariously observant novel. I really enjoyed Valancy’s journey to escape her miserable family and following on her adventures. The ending was a little unsatisfying, but everything until then was great fun.

Bob by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Maas – Read aloud chapter book that I read with the kids. This novel tells the story of Livy, a 10 year old who is visiting her grandmother in Australia after an absence of 5 years. There, she is reunited with Bob, the short green creature that she left behind five years ago, who has been waiting for her to return. Together they try to solve the mystery of where Bob came from. The book is told in dual narration and kept us all interested. It’s a lovely story about friendship and family. Also there are periodic pictures, which the kids always like having a few pictures to look at in their books.

On my proverbial night stand:
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – I’m almost done – the book just took a turn from a good read to a “I HAVE to know know happens next!!!!” In fact, even while I write this post, there’s a voice in my head saying “What are you doing? Go back to reading Love Songs!”

My Name is Phillipa by Phillipa Ryder – a memoir by an Irish trans woman. I feel like it’s an important time to hear these stories, though I’m a little put off by the fact that the audiobook narrator does not have an Irish accent.

True Biz by Sara Novic – a good combination of enlightening and compelling family dynamics so far.

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo- Only two chapters in, but this is very well written and has sucked me in.

How is your balance between reading and scrolling these days?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye February, Hello, March!!

I’m posting this later in the week than usual, and we’re firmly into March. February seemed really short to me this year. It’s only two/three days shorter than other months, but for some reason the month felt as if it was gone in a flash. I think this probably had a lot to do with the three days I was sick – that’s practically a whole week there.

This last week of February had some fun things:

Last minute gig: On Friday, I got a call to stage manage an event on the next Monday. It was a strange call because I knew the theatre and the stage managers are usually booked at least a month in advance. Turns out it was the producer that was hiring me, not the theatre. Oh well, sure, I’ll take your money! The event was a concert put on by the Kuwaiti embassy, and as these things tend to be, it was a little chaotic but full of heart. Stage managing events isn’t my favorite thing – I like a rehearsal process and getting to know people and creating the product together. But the money for events is generally good and people are often really glad you’re there. And you know – it’s partly feels like the stakes are high because you only have one chance to get things right. At the same time, the stakes feel pretty low because you only have to do it once, often with minimal/no rehearsal. So there’s a lot of “by the seat of your pants”ing and it is exciting in a way.

I work in this theatre and with this crew a lot, and it’s one of my favorite places to work, so that was definitely a fun part of the gig. Also, I learned so much about flag protocol on this assignment – the US Flag must be to the right of the flag of a foreign nation, and the foreign nation’s flag can’t be larger than the U.S. Flag – this caused a flurry of activity backstage when the Kuwaiti embassy folks showed up with a flag and asked if we could provide an American flag. It turned out fine in the end, but I’m sure glad the crew knew all the rules. Also if you are playing more than one national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner is played last. All the rules and what not are so fascinating to me. And now I know – whenever I work and embassy event, on of the first things to ask is, “Will you be bringing a flag for onstage? And how big is it?”

The concert was lovely, and featured a mix of American and Kuwaiti music. There was a local orchestra who played alongside several musicians from Kuwait playing instruments that I had never seen before but which I found so interesting to hear. All in all, not a bad day’s work.

Drumline Showcase! Friday night we went to the High School Drumline Showcase. It was at our local high school and featured the drumlines of eight (I think) high schools in our district. It was amazing. Also very loud. So much showmanship and musicianship. Drumline was not something I was aware of when I was in high school, so this was a fascinating glimpse for me. The Husband did marching band when he was in high school, and afterwards he was telling me all about the drumline hierarchy.

…. and then the lights went out. This part was a lot of fun.

The concert felt like a glimpse into my future as a high school parent. I went to a magnet high school that was twenty miles away from home, so I wasn’t really involved in any high school activities or groups. There was such a sense of community at the drumline showcase – it seemed everyone had friends there – we even ran into our former neighbors – it made me realize that a huge part of high school is the community you build for your family and for your kids. Where we are, there are several options for high schools kids can go to – there is the one you are districted for, but then there students can also apply for programs at different high schools as well. I can’t believe that next fall we’ll be having our first go around of high school choice with the 13 year old – I believe applications are due end of October. Right now she wants to go to our districted high school because it has a strong theatre program and also a lot of her friends might end up there as well. I am anticipating a lot of stress this October as we figure out this high school stuff. Choice is good, but also choice means choosing which can be stressful.

Painting Pottery with Friends – My good friend K and I had a date last weekend at one of those paint your own pottery places. I had never been to one before and it had actually never crossed my mind as an activity for a girls’ afternoon. K invited her friend W, whom I had hung out with a couple times in the past, and we had such a good time. Pottery painting was a good combination of creative and relaxing. I tend to resist activities that leave me with a tangible item to take home because I always think, Oh what am I going to do with this? But the pottery place had some very functional pieces and I chose to paint a flower pot for the Husband. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out when it is fired. Afterwards we went out for an early dinner and it was just such a lovely afternoon all in all.

February highlights: So now we’re into March. Two months down in 2025. Ten more to go! Some of the good things that happened in February:

-Visiting the Duck Decoy Museum.

-Celebrating the Husband’s Birthday at one of his favorite restaurants.

-On the work front – finishing hiring stage management staff for next season. (Well mostly. There is a hiring freeze right now so we technically can’t hire some people, but we have asked them to hold the dates for us.); doing supertitles for a lovely voice recital; the last minute concert for the Kuwaiti embassy.

-The 13 year old finally having her birthday party. Six girls at our house for a sleepover and waffles and the newest Marvel movie the next morning.

-The kids’ continuing to thrive in their activities. The 8 year old is taking a goaltending clinic. I was surprised because I didn’t think it would be his thing, but he says playing goalie is “chill. Until it’s not.” The 5 year old did a session of gymnastics. Previously I signed her up for the tumbling and trampoline class because quite frankly, the gymnastics equipment scares me – so much opportunity for injury. This time I signed her up for the class where they rotate equipment and she’s really taken to the balance beam. They both are continuing with skating, which has been fun to watch. The 13 year old is all basketball all the time, but she also is in the ensemble for the middle school musical – I’m really proud of how she’s pursuing both interests.

-Super Bowl Party with good friends and good food.

-Daily Yoga. Except for the day that I was sick, I managed to do at least 10 minutes, often 20 minutes of yoga every morning. I didn’t start the year intending to have a yoga streak, but it’s been a nice part of my morning to know that I’ll do some yoga in the morning.

-Blogg-y community fun: 1) Elisabeth’s FJIG Collective, such a heartwarming and encouraging effort from around the internet for finding good things in life, and 2) Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club reading The Blue Castle together – a wild and quaint book that sparked some really fun discussions on her blog.

-Watching the kids get along. Mostly. I feel like the two little kids are at a magical age (5 and 8) where they really enjoy playing with each other. Most mornings I can just do my thing and they’ll play nerf guns or some other pretend game or read to one another. It’s really sweet. I do worry that the 13 year old feels left out of that dynamic sometimes, but you know what, if she would bother to emerge from her room and take her headphones off, I’m sure her siblings would welcome her into their games. The kids do collectively call themselves the “Kids Club”, which I love.

February lowlights:

-Sick Days. For me, for the 13 year old. Ugh, just ugh. We’re both better now, but the gunk and cough is still lingering, and we can’t seem to shake it.

-The 13 year old didn’t get the part she wanted in the school musical. She was really upset to be “just ensemble”, and that’s tricky to navigate with her. It’s all fine and I think she is now having a good time, but it was kind of a sad day when the cast list went up.

-Scrolling. I had one day when I went on Facebook to try to get some information and then went down a kind of sad rabbit hole. I’m not active on social media; I had quit Facebook about two years ago – that day in October when the site went down, and I took it as a sign. I’ll still check it once in a while for information – like seeing if a store I like is open, or if there’s some activity going on that I want to go to. But even then, I’m just checking individual FB pages and not looking at my own feed. Welp, I made the mistake one day of clicking on my feed while checking something, and I got sucked into scrolling and reading other people’s news. One of the reasons I got off FB in the first place was because I never felt happy or uplifted or connected by it. I always just felt anxious or jealous. Anxious because it seemed like my groups – which, granted, were mostly parenting groups – were full of people’s anxieties. Anxieties about screen time, about how to keep their kids warm, about feeling judged… I know these groups are often for people to find sounding boards for issues, and I see the value in that, but I often found I was taking on other people’s anxieties and I didn’t like that. Then the other part is that I would often feel jealous because a lot of the people I’m FB friends with are work colleagues and it’s just hard for me to see what other amazing work/shows/projects people are working on because it always seems amazing (Yes, I know that’s the point of posting it on social media). I have a degree of insecurity about how good I am at my job and when i see people working on amazing projects it kind of affects my self confidence and makes me feel small. So anyhow… that FB black hole I went down that one day in February- it didn’t land me in a happy place. I just felt kind of listless afterwards. So now I know for sure that I should not be on FB or any kind of social media because it messes with my head.

-The new political administration. I find myself avoiding writing publicly about the new administration because it feels… odd, maybe even rash. It might be fine. It might not. But my work happens to be connected somewhat with a federal institution and I like my job and want to keep it, so I’m being cautious on what I write about the whole situation.
I can’t pretend that nothing is happening, but I also recognize that some things would be imprudent for me to say on the internet. But here is a super superficial thing. I am selfishly angry that all my friends at the bus stop have been ordered back to in person work and are scrambling to find childcare and I don’t get to have my bus stop chit chat. Talking to my friends at the bus stop is one of the high points of my day. Of course there are the friends that no longer have jobs, so I guess I’ll be having more chit chats with them.
Okay in the scheme of things, my bus stop social is the least consequential thing that the upheaval in Washington is disrupting right now. There is so much uncertainty and confusion in the air. And fear and sadness. And anger. I want everything to be okay in the end. So I guess we’re not yet at the end. Oh well. I keep telling myself that at least I’m not stuck in a war torn foreign country with no idea how I’m going to get back home. In the big picture, my work upheaval probably isn’t that big of a deal. Malthus’s hierarchy of needs and all that. But it has been a stressful anxious time for sure.

February 29th – Things I wonder – So here’s a fun thing from my five year journal. Since I don’t use the February 29th page every year, I’ve taken to using that page to write down some of the things I’m pondering at the time. I call it the “Things I wonder” page. Last week, being the last week of February, I was re-reading the February 29th entries and it made for an interesting time capsule – here’s some of it:
2021: How will I know to get the [COVID] vaccine? Will [the oldest] do okay in school? When should I send the two little kids back to daycare? When will I go back to work? Do I even want to go back to work?

2022: What is going on in the Ukraine? How can I connect more with [oldest child]? When will it feel like the pandemic is over? Am I going to get better at the “stepping up” part of my job? Is there a way to do this [opera] without exhausting the Husband ?

2023: Will [the two little kids] be as hard as [the oldest]? Do I want to stop stage managing? Am I just better suited to being an Assistant Stage Manager? Can we afford life? When will the war in Ukraine end? How can I be a better roommate?

2024 was a leap year, so I don’t have an “Things I wonder” page. It’s interesting what questions get answered and what questions don’t, what questions I am still asking myself and what questions I don’t ask anymore.

Grateful For: It is technically the end of Elisabeth’s month of FIG collecting, but I’ve always listed my gratitudes every week in my posts, and I’ll continue to do so.

-The 8 year old, who has never really taken to school saying one morning as we walked up the path to school, “You know, I’m starting to like school.” Who knows if it will last, but there’s a glimmer.

-The road crew that fixes the potholes. There have been so many potholes popping up in the main street by us. I try to avoid them, but am not always successful. Hooray for the road crew that is filling them – rather quickly too, I’m surprised by the speed at which the County has been dispatching road crews.

-On that note of municipal services – public trash cans. How amazing to be walking down the street eating an orange and not have to think about where I’m going to put the orange peel until I get home. I can just throw it away in this trash can on the street!

-Clean crisp sheets and sliding between them after a long day.

-The smell of dinner cooking as I walk in the front door.

-Our backyard. It’s not a big backyard, but it’s our own space outside. On Sunday, after we came home from the 8 year old’s goaltending clinic, he wanted to play more soccer, so we kicked the ball around in the backyard. I remember during COVID how grateful I was to have a backyard to get out of the house and enjoy sunshine and air. I’m still grateful for this space – not just for me, but also to have a space where I can safely send the kids out of the house to run off some energy.

-Our friend W, who picked up the 8 year old from school and watched the kids when I had that last minute gig.

-The County Rec Centers. The rec center near us has an indoor walking track and a fitness room, all of which county residents can use for free. I haven’t used the exercise room yet, but I met up with a friend to walk around the track one rainy morning and I was really grateful that the County was making membership free to residents again this year. Last year I kept telling myself I’d take advantage of the free membership, but I never did. I’m going to do better this year.

-Mangos. Specifically Kent mangos, ripened to just the right softness and sweetness. Eating in the middle of winter, they are like a tropical island in my hand.

-Taking the Metro to and from work and not waiting more than three minutes for a train. Also – I put my metro card on my phone and every time I tap my phone to enter the turnstile, I’m amazed how seamless it is. No more fumbling for my wallet or my card.

-The warmer weather and bikes and park time after daycare pick up. Serendipitously running into friends at the playground.

-Middle school sports and the teachers who coach them. The 13 year old’s middle school basketball season came to a close. I managed to make it to half of the final game. Her games are at the same time as when I have to pick up the 8 year old from the bus stop, so usually the Husband has gone to the games. But he couldn’t go to that last game so I managed to go to the first half of her game and see her play for the first time. I’m so glad that the 13 year old had an opportunity to play on her school team.

-Middle school teachers and administrators in general. Not going to lie – walking through the halls of the the middle school to go to the 13 year old’s game was intimidating. All those pre-teens – loud, mysterious, moody, full of opinions – it was scary. And I didn’t have to interact with them. God Bless those who have made it their life’s work to help guide kids at this oh so tricky stage.

Looking Forward To:
-The Secret Garden at the high school. Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s The Secret Garden is one of my favorite musicals ever. I’m so excited to see it. Will the kids love it? Will they be bored? Who knows? Who cares?

-A relatively open March. My last month without rehearsals.

-Day Trip to meet up with a friend. We’re going to meet up at the Duck Decoy Museum because it’s half way between us. I’m actually pretty excited about this because I didn’t get to see the whole thing thoroughly when the family was there in February.

-Just started this book – it’s been on my radar for a while, so when I found a copy at our Library used bookstore I snatched it up immediately – Engie and Julie gave it high praise, so I moved it up my TBR, and am liking it so far:

-Also – It’s March! A new month! A new stack of Magazines to read on Libby. I LOVE magazines and when I discovered I could read the via Libby it was like angels singing. Reading magazines on Libby isn’t as nice as reading them in paper, but on Libby I can get magazines from all over the world, so it’s a trade off:

My current magazine cue…

What We Ate:

Monday: I had a salad from the canteen at work. Our friend W who came to watch the kids brought them chickens sausage and potatoe soup.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! Korean Pork Tacos from Dinner Illustrated. Still working on eating that 6lb cabbage.

Wednesday: Italian Wedding Soup with Turkey Meatballs from NY Times Cooking. This was a pretty simple soup and came together pretty quickly because I made the meatballs ahead of time over the weekend.

Thursday: Tikil Gomen, Misir Wot, and injera. This was the same cabbage, carrot and potato dish that I made last week. This time I also made misir wot (red lentils) to go with it. For the misir wot, I used mostly this recipe from the Washington Post, but I made it in the Instant Pot so that I could make it in the morning and then leave it. Surprisingly the kids really liked the lentils and didn’t care for the tikil gomen. (Even though it was the exact same cabbage dish that they had loved eating LAST WEEK!!!)

Friday: Pizza (take out). No movie this week because we were going to see the drumline showcase.

Saturday: My friends and I went out to eat after pottery paining. We went to a really tasty Mexican restaurant. I had Enchiladas (served with cactus!) and we split a delicious flan for dessert.

Sunday: Dumplings from the freezer, and whatever other leftovers we could scrounge up.

How was your February? What extracurriculars did you do in high school? What have you been wondering about lately?

New York City Day, January 2025

Glimpses of iconic buildings.

In the scheme of things, New York is not that far from Washington, DC. Even still we don’t get up there very often, One of the reasons we don’t go to New York City very much is because the price of a hotel kind of intimidates me. Last time we went for an overnight stay, we stayed with friends. That was in 2017. But since then, I’ve discovered that NYC is actually a very manageable day trip from D.C. A couple of years ago, the Husband and I took a day trip up, leaving on the 6:30am train and coming home on the 6:30pm train. If you can buy train ticket well ahead of time, it’s actually not too expensive. And then you don’t have to pay for a hotel.

When I saw that the two older kids had a random Wednesday off at the end of January, I thought about things we could do. Usually on these days off I will take the kids down town to the Mall or on a hike somewhere local. On a whim, though, I looked at train tickets to New York and they were not that expensive – $120 round trip and the 8 year old was discounted. (It would could have been even cheaper if we took an even later train; the DC-> NY leg was only $45!, but the return was $75. The 11pm return was $25)

So I started to look for things to do, thinking we’d go to a museum or something, and then I discovered that the last week of January was Broadway Week and a lot of shows had 2-for-1 ticket deals. Now usually I take a long time to plan things and I hem and haw and book things two minutes after I should and things are way more expensive than they could have been. I tend to over think travel. But this time, I surprised myself and decided to book the trip. This was of course after asking the Husband if it was a silly idea, after all we had just gotten back from an not inexpensive trip to Asia. Why not have an adventure? I thought. I’m never the “fun parent” and I wanted to be the “fun parent.” Plus I wanted to see some theatre.

Originally I wanted to take the kids to see SIX since they have been listening to that soundtrack non-stop for the better part of a year. But there was not Wednesday matinee of SIX. So when I looked to see what else there was, I saw that there was a Wednesday matinee for Hadestown. I didn’t know anything about Hadestown except that all the theatre people I knew raved about it. Well that was good enough endorsement for me, and Hadestown it was! All together I think we paid $77 per ticket with the Broadway Week deal.

The day of the trip, I got everyone up at 5:00am so that we could get on the metro at 5:30pm for Union Station. I packed lots of snacks, water, and some books and games for the train ride. The kids were surprisingly uncomplaining about having to get up so early. I guess they were looking forward to the trip too. I also promised them hot chocolate if we got to Union Station and didn’t miss our train. So there was that. We got onto our train with plenty of time to spare and we were off! One of the things I love about taking the early morning train is getting to watch the sun come up as we sped up the coast.

Three and a half hours later we were in New York City. It still felt like morning when we got there, and we had a whole day in front of us!

First stop: Bagels! We picked up bagels from Best Bagels and took them to Bryant Park and sat in the park to eat. New York bagels are enormous! I had a bacon and egg bagel, the 8 year old had a blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese and the 13 year old had a salmon sandwich. The bagels were soft and tender, breadier than I am used to. And the blue berry bagel was a revelation – it tasted like real blueberry, not like artificial blueberries.

We sat in Bryant Park for an hour, watching people go by and the 8 year old chased pigeons.

Next stop – after a stop at CVS and a bathroom- was the New York Pubic Library. This wasn’t actually the part of the library with books, rather we saw one of their exhibits of parpphenelia related to their collections. There were some video clips and design sketches from their performing arts library, the papers and novels of James Baldwin. My favorite part was the collection of stuffed animals that inspired Winnie the Pooh:

The original Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga. Roo apparently was lost in an orchard somewhere.

After examining the library’s exhibit, we headed towards our next stop, but as we were leaving the library, we saw a group giving juggling lessons. What a whimsically serendipitous thing. We spent about twenty minutes tossing bags around and watching the other jugglers.

Our next stop was Kinokuniya, a Japanese bookstore that specialized in manga and graphic novels. It was an amazing place – the kind of place where dreams come true. At least for me. The store was three stories. The main floor was full of book- best sellers, a children’s section, gift gooks, the usual. (There was a four foot display for Onyx Storm). The second floor was all manga and graphic novels. These were the two floors where the kids wanted to spend their time and money.

The second floor – all manga and graphic novels.

The lower floor, though…. The lower floor was my heaven- the lower floor featured a stationary section. Pens and notebooks and paper and pencil cases galore. I was in a state of bliss. So many A5 notebooks! My fingers trailed over paper and pages, reveling in the different textures. And all the pens- so many colours and sizes.

Look at all those notebooks!!!!
Pens!

We stayed at Kinokuniya until it was time to head over to the theatre, leaving with quite a haul. Each kid chose a book – the latest Dogman for the 8 year old and a graphic novel called “My Super Hot Husband” for the 13 year old, that is not as racy as the titles would have you believe – and I picked out a notebook and two pens.

(Okay on the note of My Super Hot Husband. I had no way to vet it before we bought it because all the books in the Manga section were wrapped in plastic. I tried to Google the title, but nothing really came up. I had a massive debate with myself in the bookstore about whether or not I should tell the 13 year old that she couldn’t get the book. In fact I did make her pick out another book. But then I couldn’t really come up with a good reason why she couldn’t make her own choices as to what she wanted to read as long as she felt comfortable discussing topics with me that came up. I’d rather she feel confident and open about sharing her reading choices with me, than ashamed and hide things from me. Plus, why and I so worried about a book when there is the whole internet in front of her? So in the end, she came home with “My Super Hot Husband” with the proviso that I got to read it too.)

From the bookstore, it was a fifteen minute walk up Broadway to the theatre. Up past Times Square, full of brilliance and bustle, even at 1pm in the afternoon. We held hands tightly so as not to lose one another as we wove in and out of crowds. When we arrived at the theatre there was quite a line to get in because everyone had to go through security screening. At first I was worried that we would be late for the show, but the line moved very quickly. I suppose when you do eight shows a week the staff gets very used to moving people through quickly. Broadway theatres are so different from the theatres I work in. For one – they are much smaller so the doors open straight into the theatre.

Waiting in line.

I’m going to give a huge shout out to the ushers at the theatre. There was one lady stationed by the bathrooms. She was managing the traffic with such firm efficiency and calm. “Please move in. You can stand against that wall and wait for a stall on the left. Thank you. Can you stand here behind the person with the plaid shirt, and wait for a stall on the right. Please don’t worry. I’ll get everyone into the bathroom and into their seats before the show. I never leave anyone in the bathroom. Step this way, please….” It made my stage manager soul really delighted to watch her work.

After our bathroom stop, we went to our seats. And there was another usher who looked at the kids and asked, “Is this anyone’s first Broadway show?”

The eight year old said it was his first Broadway show, and the usher gave him a sticker set that said, “My First Broadway Show!” One sticker was to go on his program and one was to go on his shirt. He wanted to save the shirt sticker for later, but he did put a sticker on his program.

In our seats. They weren’t the most expensive or the cheapest, but Broadway theatres are so small that I think all the seats had pretty good views.

I didn’t know a whole lot about Hadestown going in. It’s billed as a folk musical which intertwines the myths of Orpheus/Eurydice and Hades/Persephone, and sets it all during the Dust Bowl. We had listened to the soundtrack to prepare, and on the train in I listened to a few podcasts on Greek mythology with the kids because I had heard that if you didn’t know the underlying myths the story might be hard to follow. Other than that, I didn’t know anything about the production aspects of the show. I had known that Hadestown had won a lot of Tonys in 2019, but then there was the pandemic, and it fell off my radar. I wanted to go in without a whole lot of information, so I could experience the show pretty fresh.

The show was AMAZING! I loved it so much. – Okay, a gripe first. During the show not one, but TWO cellphones went off. TWO!!!! The second one went off in the second act during a moment of absolute silence. WTF!!!?!?!. People, turn your phones to silent! – But even that could not ruin a wonderful time at the theatre. Technically the show was stunning, the set seemed simple when you first walked in, but then it became such an integral part of the drama. The actors inhabited and interacted with the set in such beautiful organic ways. I loved the musicians being onstage – you could really watch them play and the actors work off them. I loved the way the ensemble moved together. And I also really just loved the story telling. I mean we all know how the Orpheus story ends, but I was still on the edge of my seat as the story unfolded. The show has so much to say about connection and feeling alone and the importance of stories in our life. The songwriter Anais Mitchell first wrote the musical in 2006 as a concept album, but so much of the show felt really pertinent to our times. Hades is a wealthy womanizing mogul who runs the mining town, exploiting the poorer people. There is literally a s song called, “Why We Build the Wall”. There was one line when a character gives a toast “To the times we live in now” which was greeted by the audience with absolute silence and a palatable air of tension. I love when a theatre experience feels like it is perfect for them moment. The whole timeless/ timeliness of art – I think about that a lot.

After the show, we went for dinner. The kids had requested burgers. I had to admit I was a little nervous about eating near the theatre because I hate waiting in lines and eating in crowded places, but we ended up at Bareburger a nice quiet burger place with no wait. (Maybe because it was only 5:00pm?). I think the place is actually a chain, but it still had a nice sit down/neighborhood feel. We ordered fried pickle chips, and each of us had a burger.

After dinner, we had a few hours before our train, so we wandered back to Penn Station slowly, staying a few blocks from Broadway. We got some boba at Jooy Tea Shop. The Boba was very good and the drinks not too sweet.

Then we stopped at Muji near Penn Station. Because one Japanese stationary store in one day wasn’t enough. I love Muji – the simplicity and practicality of everythint they carry. We didn’t buy anything at Muji because we had already bought ourselves presents earlier in the day. But it was fun to look.

Look at all those colours!!!!

We made it back to the train station with plenty of time to spare and soon we were on the 7:40pm train back to D.C. The train ride back was uneventful. The kids read their new books and played games on their screens. We were back in DC a little after 11:30pm, and didn’t have to wait but a few minutes for the Metro home. By midnight everyone was tucked in bed.

Just for my records, I kept track of how much the day cost, and here’s the breakdown:

Train Tickets: $330 (for three tickets)
Hadestown Tickets: $250 (for three tickets)
Hot Chocolate at Train Station: $8
Bagels: $34
CVS: $8 (Funny story – I had to buy pads because I had a period emergency. But then I left the pads in the bathroom at the park! I felt really stupid about this one. But the 13 year old found some pads at the bottom of her bag. I’ll never give her a hard time about not being prepared ever again.)
Kinokuniya Bookstore Haul: $80
Dinner: $64
Boba: $19
TOTAL: $793 – So it wasn’t exactly a cheap day, but I think as a once every six months or so splurge-y day of fun for me and the kids, it felt pretty doable.

All in all, a great day. Full of adventures, but moving at a slow enough pace that I didn’t feel rushed. I don’t know if Broadway Week is a regular thing, but I’m going to keep my eye out next year because it was such a fun, doable day trip for us.

Weekly recap + what we ate: President’s Day, and mundane bathroom things

Last week started with a day off for President’s Day and it was such a lovely day… Nothing terribly special or unique. Not big adventures. Just a really nice day at home. The best thing, though, is I had the two little kids make to do lists for the day, a combination of things that I wanted them to do and things that they wanted to do with their day at home. I’m a firm believer that a good day is a combination of fun and productive activities. The kids seemed to really get into having little Post It lists of tasks and getting to check things off:

The one on the left is the 8 year old’s list and the one on the right is the 5 year old’s list.

We started the day in a leisurely fashion – I did some yoga. The Husband fed the kids breakfast. The after breakfast we cleaned the living room and did some general puttering around the house. We’re still struggling to find a good routine for keeping the house tidy. The tidy habits just aren’t there with me or the kids, but if we leave things to tidy at the end of the day it gets quite out of control.

Then we had lunch – reheated pizza, I’m sure. Because that’s what we always eat for lunch at home. After lunch we went on a walk/bike ride to the park. I love that we live walking distance to a playground and a trail. And since it was a holiday weekend, the parkway parrallel to the trail was closed to car traffic, so the kids had a nice long uninterrupted stretch of road to ride on. We walked from the closest playground to the next one down on the trail and played there for about half an hour before coming home.

After we got home, we watched Wonka- how luxurious does it feel to have an afternoon family movie “night”? After the movie – cute, entertaining, but not particularly memorable, I felt – I made dinner. After dinner, the 13 year old went to basketball and the 5 year old took a shower while the 8 year old worked on his Black History Month project – a poster about Barak Obama. (This is the “Barack Obama” that is on his to do Post It above. I have to say, helping the 8 year old research Barack Obama made me kind of wistful. And really really really sad about the current state of affairs in Washington D.C.) Then we had some family reading time before bed for the two younger kids. We haven’t been reading out loud together as much as we used to – we’ve been going to be so late that it’s usually just pjs, brush teeth, then lights out and cuddles. Sometimes I’ll put on a story podcast for them while we cuddle, but I’m really missing reading outloud from a chapter book. I should try to find a way to put that back into our schedule.

All in all, though, it felt like a really good day – a nice balance of relaxing fun, outdoor fun, and house/life admin. Sometimes I think when we have these family days off, we should try to do something special, but you know what, just a regular leisurely day at home is pretty special too. I don’t think we got in the car until it was time to take the oldest kid to basketball clinic. I do like having a car-free day.

The rest of the week was business as usual – school, activities, etc. I had a super title gig for a recital that featured a lot of beautiful German music and two arias by Handel. I love Handel, so that was a particular treat. One interesting thing about this recital is that the singer did his own translations. Usually when I’m given translations to made into supertitle slides, the singer has pulled them from somewhere else and sometimes they need to be massaged a little bit in order to make good title slides. But this singer, impressively translated everything himself and it was quite well done – no massaging needed.

Mundane Bathroom Things…This next bit was inspired by Elisabeth’s post last month asking for shampoo recommendations. Her post got me thinking how I’m probably the worst person to give recs for personal care products. I started listing in my head all the personal care products I use and it all seemed rather… haphazard…. Through a combination of good genes and apathy, I find myself with a pretty minimal body/face/skin care routine, mostly relying on whatever is around the house. Anyhow, I started going through the list of all the personal care products and items I use regularly and thought it might be the kind of mundane snapshot of life that I’ll be super interested in reading about twenty years from now. Also it might be stupefyingly boring. (If this seems the latter to you, feel free to scroll down to this week’s FIGS.)

Glimpse inside our medicine cabinet. What’s with the ridiculous number of deodorants??? There aren’t that many stinky armpits in the house. Also I seem to be stockpiling eyeglass cleaner. I’m glad I took this picture- it’s inspiring me to do a little clean out. Note the old fashioned ice pack on the top shelf. I love the thing but can never get to it in time when someone needs ice.

Let’s talk about showering – I don’t shower every day. I don’t even shower every other day. I usually shower three times a week. Less if I’m not going into work regularly. Showering is just kind of a lot of work to me. So my preference, though, is to shower at night. Things I use in the shower:

-Soap: Dial bar soap. This is what the Husband uses, so it’s what we have in the house and therefore what I use.

-Shampoo: I used to use Soap and Salve bar shampoo and an apple cidar vinegar rinse. I thought it might be better for the environment because there was no plastic involved, except for the old peri bottle I used for the vinegar. But the shampoo is not that easy to get and I realized that ordering it online hardly makes it good for the environment. So I just started using whatever kids’ shampoo was in the shower. I used to use the 13 year old’s Pantene (which is the shampoo of choice because we can buy it at Costco), but then she started showering in the downstairs bathroom and took her shampoo with her. So… now I just use whatever the little kids use because it’s there. Currently we use Everyone 3-in-1 soap (Body wash, bubble bath, and shampoo.)

-Conditioner: Pantene – but only if I’m showering downstairs in the 13 year old’s shower and it’s there. Otherwise no conditioner.

-Washcloth. Sometimes. Only if there’s already one in the shower. But even then, I never know who used it last so usually I don’t bother.

-Tubshroom. Not personal care per se, this is a little silicone insert that you put in the drain and it catches hair. I do lose a lot of hair in the shower and this thing is invaluable in keeping the hair from clogging the drains. Or at least keeping it from quickly clogging the drains. We still do have to have our drain snaked about once a year.

After Shower Things I use:
-Towel – I have a favorite towel that I’ve been using for probably twenty years. I took it from my parent’s house when I moved out. I love it because it is large, bath sheet sized, but it isn’t thick, so it’s easy to manipulate it to dry off and then I can wrap my hair in it. I get very grumpy if it is in the wash when I want to shower. (Thank you to my Husband to washing my towel, even when he doesn’t tell me he’s doing it ahead of time…)

-Q-tips. i know! they say don’t use q-tips in your ears, but I hate having wet ears.

-Cetaphil body cream – must moisturize after shower. I’m pretty brand loyal about this. I usually get it at Costco because I can buy two giant containers at a time and not have to think about it again for a year.

-Turbie twist, to dry my hair after I towel dry it. I hate walking around with wet hair. When I shower at night, I’ll usually sleep with my hair in the Turbie Twist because it gives my hair a bit of volume in the morning when it is dried.

-Deodorant – not shower specific as usually I only use deoderant if I’m going out in public. I don’t tend to bother with deodorant for hanging out at home. I’ve been using Native lilac and white tea lately, because it smells nice and supposedly is free of aluminum and parabens. Is it really better? Who knows. Everyone’s body chemistry is different so I feel like there’s no magic solution.

-Hair dryer – I prefer to let my hair air dry, but if I happen to shower in the morning and then have to go to work, I’ll blow dry it before I leave the house. I’ve had the Revlon 1875 Ionic hair dryer for over ten years. It was whatever Consumers Report recommended at the time.

Before bed:
-tooth brush – I’m currently using a Dr. Suess kid’s toothbrush. What can I say? It was what was in the toothbrush bin when I had to replace my last toothbrush. Shockingly – I always brush at night, but don’t always manage a morning brush. If I brush in the morning, I prefer to do it first thing because a dentist friend told me that the morning is when there is the most amount of bacteria in one’s mouth.

-Toothpaste – Aquafresh Extreme Clean – I’m actually pretty picky about this. This is the only toothpaste I’ll use if given a choice. Everything else tastes like cotton candy to me.

-Floss – Oral B Glide – this was recommended by the dentist because my teeth are pretty tightly packed together and other floss just shreds when I try to use it.

(I know I should wash my face at night, but I don’t wear make-up, so I don’t feel particular urgency about face washing. If I feel the need to wash my face, I’ll just do a wet washcloth and water.)

Other stuff in my bathroom that gets regular use:
-to clean my glasses, whatever glasses spray came with my glasses from the place I got my glasses. I’m pretty sure it’s just Windex in a branded spray bottle.
-Aquaphor – for every thing that feels dry. Usually my lips, often times my hands if I have an eczema breakout. Also slathered on our faces before we go out when the air is super cold and biting.
-Steroid ointment for my eczema. okay, truth, this tube of prescription ointment is at least eight years old, but it is huge and it still works to calm my eczema when it gets bad. Perhaps I should go back to my dermatologist and get a new prescription, but I am terrible about doctors.
-Lip balm – Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick. Love that this stuff keeps my lips from feeling dry without being too thick or sticky.
-Sunscreen – I use whatever I have for the kids. I had a fancy sun screen last summer, but it made my skin sting and burned whenever I got it in my eyes, so I went back to just using whatever I get for the kids – usually Think Baby or Aveeno, or Coppertone. Last year at some point, I also discovered the amazingness that is spray on sunscreen. That was life changing. I only use sunscreen in the summer, though. I should probably use it all the time.
-period pads – These days it’s the Cora brand, but I’ll usually just pick up whatever cotton topsheet pads I can find at Target.
-period underwear – technically in my bedroom, not bathroom, but it spends a lot of time in my bathroom.
-diaper sprayer. We installed this when we were using cloth diapers, and it actually continues to be quite useful even though we have been diaper free for three years now. I use it to rinse my period underwear, spraying it right in the toilet. Also I will on occasion use the diaper sprayer to rinse by nether regions, kind of like a bidet, but not.
-Kleenex. Always Kleenex brand. NEVER the lotion kind. That just smears when I try to clean my glasses.
-Toilet Paper – Charmin. We are pretty brand loyal to toilet paper. I got us the Kirkland brand one time and there was a meltdown when the TP fell apart as a butt was being wiped. I had to give away the rest of the 24 roll pack. And now we just get the Charmin.
-Advil.
-Hand Soap. Soft Soap because we buy that in bulk at Costco, and I love our soap dispenser that I got a year and a half ago at a sale by a local pottery group:

What I don’t have is any make up because I don’t wear any. I might have some that I keep on hand in case I want to do my face for opening night, but I never really want to make the effort, and I figure I’m just standing around in the dark all night – no one cares what I look like. I guess if I do have any make-up lying around it’s got to be at least five years old. I should probably find that and throw it out.

Whew – I guess it is a long list after all. I didn’t even list most of the stuff in the medicine/linen closet in the bathroom. Like the first aid/medicines that we keep in the bathroom, but I figure that’s not stuff I use regularly. Also didn’t list out the contents of the hair accessories drawer, but that’s because my hair is in a short phase so I don’t usually use the hair ties or clips right now. So there’s a snapshot of one corner of my life in February 2025.

Grateful For: my weekly collection of things I’m grateful for. This month, I’m recording extra gratitudes to add to Elisabeth’s FIG Collective I’ve loved reading everyone one’s FIGs this month.

-Paths and parks.

-School Bus Drivers. One day the 8 year old’s bus was 30 minutes late. Turns out there were some additions to the bus driver’s earlier route that caused trickle down delays. As annoyed as I was to be standing in the cold for 30 minutes waiting for the bus, I’m really grateful to school bus drivers for getting kids to and from school safely. That can’t be an easy job.

-Kids reading to each other:

-That my thyroid is fine. Last year I had a thyroid ultrasound to rule out any issues related to my abnormal period. There was a “not-concerning, but maybe you should have it checked out” nodule. At the time, the ENT said my thyroid is fine, but to schedule a six month follow up. (I guess my abnormal period is just called “being in my mid-forties”.) I had my follow up this week and everything looks fine. There continue to be nodules on my thyroid, but they seems to come and go and are small, so I have another follow up in a year, but no one is concerned.

-Sunshine.

-All the things that make a good morning – healthy breakfast (sweet potato, black beans, cilantro, and scallions), hot tea, a good book, and the crossword puzzle. And fifteen minutes to enjoy it all in peace:

My morning happy place. When it happens.

-Fleece-lined pants. I know I keep mentioning this one, but they are truly life changing.

-It’s Cadbury mini egg season!!!! How much do I love Cadbury mini eggs? The crisp crunchy shell. The smooth sweet chocolate inside. The perfect little size to pop into my mouth. The fact that they are only available once a year. Rejoice! It is Cadbury mini egg season. Oh a discovery! The other day I had some Cadbury mini eggs while sipping my tea and it made my tea taste like a chocolate chai. In light of my M&M conundrum, I am hiding these from the kids.

-That the 8 year old did his homework without either of us having a meltdown.

-A quiet theatre before a performance. The promise of a beautiful evening of music. I think one of my favorite moments of my job is that half hour before a show starts, when everything is in place to begin, and the air back stage is one of quiet anticipation and preparation. I love that energy.

-Laundry freshly washed and hung up to dry, scenting the air with the smell of detergent.

-The five year old’s sassy sense of style:

-Music, played loudly in the car with everyone singing along and bopping to the beat.

-The six pound cabbage. We have a friend who gives us his CSA when he is out of town. Last week, he brought over a HUGE cabbage. Like bigger-than-my- head huge. I put it on the scale to see how much it weigh. Friends, this cabbage weighed more than any of my children at birth. We’ve been slowly eating away at it. Good thing cabbages last a long time.

Yes, that’s a 6lb, 13.9 oz cabbage. I guess that makes it almost 7lbs!

-A brisk and invigorating walk.

-Hot tea in a mug.

-A cake on the counter. One day, I was working from home and, in my procrastination, I decided that I had to do something with the sad looking oranges in our fruit bowl. When I say sad, I mean really really sad. Like the outside skins were dyhydrated to the point that the oranges could be used as baseballs. I found this recipe for whole orange bundt cake (Sunset Magazine’s Whole Orange Cake)- you puree the whole orange and put it in the cake. It was the perfect use for the sad oranges. Having the whole orange in the cake gave the cake a marmalade-like tang, making it not too sweet. This lovely cake sat on the counter all week, and how lovely it was to be able to walk over and cut of a slice to nibble whenever I felt like it – morning snack, afternoon tea, dessert… Doesn’t having a cake on the counter just make a kitchen seem like home?

I did not sift the powdered sugar when I made the frosting, so it clumped a little bit.

Looking Forward To:

-Swimming lessons. I managed to snag a hard to get swim lesson slot at one of the county pools. I’ve been feeling a little anxious that the two younger kids still don’t know how to swim, and I’m really hopeful this is the year they learn. I know once a week swim lessons for six weeks probably won’t do it, but it’s a start. I think I’ll also try to find time to take them to the pool as well for rec swim time. We have a new-ish county rec/swim center that opened last year and I hear it’s great. Apparently there are two hydrotherapy pools – one near the kids’ area and one far away from the kids’ area. That sounds like a great design.

-Spring – there have been some positively spring-like days lately. I’m so excited that the weather is beginning to turn.

-Cherry Blossom season! The predictions for Cherry blossom season have started to trickle in. The Washington Post is predicting mid March.

-Knitting. I’m determined to do something with the yarn sitting in my room. I’ve borrowed some books from the library and my friend loaned me some needles and I’ve decided to make a hat. I’ve knitted and pulled apart the first five rows three or four times already, but I guess that’s par for the course. I get a little excited for the possibilities every time I see the yarn and needles.

-Plans with friends. I have three separate dates on the calendar with friends whom I haven’t seen in at least six months, one of them for a year. Looking forward to catching up.

What We Ate:

Monday: Tikil goman Meera Sodha’s recipe for Ethiopian cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. We ate this with the injera that we bought from the Ethiopian grocery store that I mentioned last week. It was really simple and tasty. Vegan.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. We had a friend join us for Taco Tuesday last week. The Husband made slow cooker chicken, and I also made black beans and shrimp for the tacos. On the side – mano slaw, guacamole,

Wednesday: Baked Feta and Tomato Pasta – recipe shared by Julie on her blog. This was so easy and tasty. I thought we would have leftovers, but the kids kept asking for more. It was a touch acidic for the Husband, but I think he feels that way about any tomato-heavy dish.

Thursday: I worked this evening so had a work canteen salad. The Husband made this 15 minute Tomato Egg Noodle from Omnivore’s Cookbook. Scrambled eggs cooked in a ginger-y tomato sauce and eaten over noodles. I had leftovers days later and it was SO GOOD.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Lego Batman. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Lego Bathman before, but the Husband said I should just be thankful that he talked the 8 year old out of choosing the latest Paw Patrol movie.

Saturday: The two little kids and I were at a birthday party. There was the usual pizza, but also the family ordered falafel as the main food as well. The falafel was really tasty, the pita pillowy, there were lots of veggies and pickle toppings and there was this amazing spicy green Schug sauce to top it all off. Gold star to the birthday parents for this spread.

Sunday: Dinner out at a really tasty sandwich place, Full On. We were out for the 13 year old’s basketball game, which happened to be close to this bar/restaurant that we really like but don’t go to a lot because it’s not really close to our house. The 13 year old and I shared a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and a Crab Cake Sandwich with onion rings.

Here’s a thought to leave you with: One of my favorite things to read is the weekly chat of advice columnist Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post. I find that she answers readers questions with such a great blend of empathy and pragmatism and without sugar-coating things. Her readers often contribute similarly thoughtful advice. These past few weeks there has been much angst in reader questions about the state of the world and our place in it. I loved this comment a reader submitted to the chat last Friday:

from the chat on Friday 2/21/2025

Hope you have a week of beautiful points.
Tell me about your mundane body care things. How many bottles are in your shower? Blow dry or not to blow dry? What’s your favorite baked good to have on the counter? What else should I do with my 6 lb cabbage. (I think there’s still 4 lbs left.)

Books Read- January 2025

Last month, there was a beautiful essay on Cup of Jo by author Christine Pride called “A Reading Challenge- Who’s In?” Pride writes about the importance of reading books that portray a wide variety of people, situations, thoughts. It’s the Books as Windows idea – that books let you see into other worlds, but also can reflect your own world back to you. (Sometimes it’s “windows and mirrors”). Pride writes:

But as much as editors, agents, producers and development folks may be committed to more diverse offerings, we still have to count on audiences being willing and excited to embrace a variety of stories. There’s a dangerous trap of thinking that “Black stories” are just for Black audiences and “queer stories” are just for queer audiences, etc. […] It creates a mentality that certain books are for certain people. But we can’t always just read books about people like us or who share our histories, backgrounds and viewpoints — not only because that’s boring and reductive, but if audiences only consume certain types of content then only those types will continue to get published or made.

These days, when diversity of thought, situation, and experience is under attack by those who lead the country, I feel like it’s more important than ever that we continue to fill our media diet with viewpoints that are different from our own, and to demand diverse content from publishers and presenters. At the end of the essay, Pride asks readers to suggest books that are both windows and mirrors – books through which readers have found themselves introduced to a world very different from their own, or a book that tells of something from their own experience, something that they feel grateful to have seen reflected. Reading the comments is so interesting because there are definitely books people recommend where I think, “Hmmm…. I wouldn’t have thought to put that book on a list like this…” But then I would be wrong – because I think every book has the potential to be eye-opening to someone. Anyhow, if you’re looking for diverse book suggestions, there is a gold mine of books recommended in the comments of that post.

On to January Books!

The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw – I picked up this novel to read while in Malaysia since it was set in that country. Set in the early 20th century, the novel tells the story of Johnny Lim, an enigmatic textile merchant who is born a peasant, and becomes one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Malaysia. His life is recounted through three separate narrators – his son, his wife, and a British expat who was one of his best friends. The writing in this novel is beautiful, but ultimately I just just very confused by the whole thing, and maybe that’s the point. You get to the end of the novel still without any understanding of whom Johnny Lim was. I did enjoy reading it while in Malaysia, though, and getting a view of the history of the country.

This is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained by Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett – I really like Natterson and Kroll Bennett’s podcast “This is So Awkward” (It used to be called the Puberty Podcast) – they combine the science of puberty with solid advice on how to interact with tweens and teens with empathy and calm. This book is similar to the podcast. Each chapter looks at one aspect of puberty – from acne to body odor to periods to sexuality – and examines the science behind that aspect and then gives advice for how to talk to kids about it. They are big proponents of supplying kids with the science behind what is going on with their changing bodies and brains, and using that as a way to talk about why things sometimes feel difficult and tactics to manage. I do wish that there was more guidance on how to navigate things like executive functioning skills and screen time and decision making. I mean I really want to know how to get my tween to stop yelling at me, you know. I guess these things are outside the realm of physical changes. But as a whole, I found this book great as a basis for framework for a relationship that is open and informative.

The Love of My Afterlife by Kristy Greenwood– This was a sweetly predictable romance-ish novel about Delphie, who chokes to death on a burger, meets her soul mate in the afterlife waiting room and then is given the chance to go back to Earth to find him. I thought it was fine read- it’s marketed as a romance, but the novel is more about Delphie’s journey from being an introverted screw up to someone who gets her life together through finding a community. I really enjoyed the premise of this novel. Still, protagonists who operate with a dearth of self awareness and who can’t adult don’t tend to sit well with me, and there were definitely times when I wanted to shake Delphie . Despite that, there are a host of quirky characters and slapstick situations, making this novel a nice light read, even if it didn’t stick with me for long.

My Season of Scandal by Julie Anne Long – Book 7 in the Palace of Rogue series. How much did I love this book! Okay, the cover is terrible – the hero is not the smirky-jerk he looks like on the cover and there is NO red dress in the book. There is a a blue dress that figure prominently. I get that there is a format-ish for romance novel covers, but perhaps at least they should look something like what is happening in the story. But you know what, even that inane cover doesn’t take away from how much I enjoyed this book – for sure my favorite of the series. Catherine Keating is a pragmatic country-bred doctor’s daughter sent to London for her first (and probably only) season. Dominique Kirke is a bleeding heart liberal politician and a charismatic orator who avoids emotional entanglements and idiots. They both end up at the same boarding house, and keep crossing paths at various balls and events where Kirke tries to advise Keating on how to avoid being eaten alive by the social alligators. What did I love about this book? The two main characters are both smart and kind and thoughtful, not prone to doing idiotic things. I liked that they liked each other from the get go- the chemistry between the two of them often made me smile – there were pages and pages of long conversations between the two of them and it never felt superfluous or boring – I really got a sense of why they fall in love, when they do eventually fall in love. (It does take a while to get there…). And the falling in love is the plot – no kidnapping or intrigue or nefarious uncles – just two people trying to make good choices. And Long’s writing is just so good – every word is perfect and does what it’s supposed to do – whether it’s to make the reader laugh or tear up or cheer or move the plot along. This was my favorite sentence:
“He could not locate the ends of his composure to regather it.”
I thought that was a fantastically crafted sentence. My one quibble is that there is a bit of a large age gap which I go back and forth on whether it is necessary. But I think, actually the age gap works better than usual. Anyhow, if you like well-written slow burn character driven historical romances, I would highly recommend this one.

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennett, Witch by Melinda Taub, read by Amy Hoggart – I’m a sucker for Jane Austen re-tellings, and this Pride and Prejudice twist was pretty intriguing. The title kind of tells the premise – Lydia Bennett is a witch, descended from a long line of witches. Kitty Bennet is her familiar, literally a cat who takes on the form of a Bennett sister when it’s convenient. There are demons to fight -we all thought Wickham was a dastardly rogue, but wait til you hear the truth of how truly wicked he is – spells to cast, balls to go to and neighbors to visit. The book is clever and smart, and I loved that it showed another side of Lydia Bennett. We all underestimated her, for sure. I don’t go for magic/fantasy books a lot, and it took a long time for me to feel like I understood the the magical elements of the story – parts of the world building felt tedious to me. But once the story got rolling, it was very entertaining.

We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, Translated by E. Madison Shimoda – I saw this book at a bookstore in Taiwan and was so intrigued by the premise. This novel is a series of short stories that center around a therapist’s clinic that, as the title says, prescribes cats to solve their patients’ issues. This book was cute to start – the descriptions of the cats made me want to reach out and pet them – and then the end kind of went off the rails for me. I was so confused by the ending. I’m not smart enough for super allegorical books, and I suspect there is some of that going on here.

On my proverbial night stand:

The Love Songs of W.E.B. duBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – still working my way through this very big book. I’m super absorbed by it, though.

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery – for Engie’s book club. A delight.

Jellyfish Age Backwards by Nicklas Brendborg – slightly witty, very dry non-fiction book that looks at the science of aging.

The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary – He works the night shift and is only home from 9am to 6pm. She needs a place to stay and answers and ad to share the flat, occupying it from 6pm to 9am. Soon they start leaving each other the least passive aggressive roommate notes ever.

The Formidable Miss Cassidy by Meihan Boey – Scottish lady travels to British Malay (Singapore) to be a companion to an English teen. Mysterious happenings happen. Not my usual fare, but I’m intrigued by the setting.

Weekly recap + what we ate: sick week and random FIGS

It was a massively unproductive week. I was laid up sick for much of the week. What started as a throat tickle on Monday, devolved into me in bed for most of Wednesday. Wednesday also happened to be the snow day. Fortunate or unfortunate timing? Well, fortunate in that the kids didn’t have to go to school. Unfortunate in that it was a snow day and everyone really wanted to go sledding… There were disappointed kids for sure. In the end I spent three days in bed with periodic excursions to take the kids to the bus or to activities. Luckily on Friday the Husband took care of the school bus pick up and drop off so I could continue to rest.

I am a terrible sick person. I don’t like to stay in bed, I get bored easily, I always think I feel better way before I actually do. But I will say there is always one point when I feel like being in bed is doing me no good and I have to get outside. By the third day of being in the house resting, I was convinced that I wasn’t going to get any better staying in bed and went for a walk. My body just craved sunshine and fresh air and some movement. I walked towards the 13 year old’s school and met her as shew as on her way home, and he face lit up when she saw me. I don’t know if it’s scientifically backed, but I did feel better for having gotten out of bed and out of the house. Or maybe it was seeing my kid’s face all lit up with cold and joy. I’m reminded of something I read once (maybe it was Oprah) that said, “Make sure your face lights up when you see your child.” Realizing how much it made my day to see my kid’s face light up made me remember that it works both ways and I need to have that same joy when I see her too.

(note: it was Oprah. Rather Toni Morrison via Oprah. Okay -funny story – Toni Morrison taught at my alma mater. I once sat next to her at a lecture, and fell asleep. I hope I didn’t lean on her or drool or anything…)

Anyhow, whatever illness I had is now making it’s way through the house. The Husband had a tickle and I immediately sent him to bed, bought a humidifier, Cold-Eeeze, and Ricola. I’ve been obsessed with the idea that stress is one of the things that can exacerbate illness, so I’ve demanded everyone be as stress-free as possible. No yelling, screaming, or tantrums. Please. He seemed to have escaped the worst of it, though now the 13 year old is laid up in bed. Oh well, the bug will cycle through the family and we’ll all move on. Hunkering and reducing stress seems like an okay way to spend what is shaping up to be a very very cold February.

Fun thing, though – the 13 year old finally had her birthday party sleepover over the weekend. She’s been doing this formula for three years now and I kind of love that. She has friends over on a Saturday night – they watch movies, YouTube videos, eat pizza, chips, rainbow cake, and stay up way too late. Sunday morning we have waffles and bacon and the kids all go see a movie. Even though her birthday was in January, it took us until February to find a good weekend, due to activities and my work schedule. (It seemed downright cruel to make the Husband be the only parent at home during a tween sleepover…) This weekend was perfect because they kids didn’t have Faith Formation classes on Sunday morning and Monday is a day off from school so we can all recuperate.

I’m really proud that the 13 year old did a lot of the planning herself for the first time. Granted the planning wasn’t terribly timely, but she did take on a lot of the mental load, so I’m calling it a win. Being a new phone owner, she sent all the invites herself, as in she texted her friends with the details and tracked who was going to come. I feel like we’re entering new territory where she can make plans with her friends on her own. No more mom-enabled play dates. There was still a little coordination to be done with other parents to coordinate drop offs and pick ups, but all in all, it feels like we are slowly taking baby steps towards the oldest being an independent being. Some days I stop and realize that she will be driving in THREE YEARS and I try not to freak out too much.

The set up – fruit, chips, chips, chips, cookies, and face masks!

Grateful for: I’m trying to be more mindful of big and little gratitudes this month, in honour of Elisabeth’s FIG (Finding Joy in Gratitude) Collective this month. Thank you Elisabeth for gathering people and thoughts! (There’s my first FIG right there!)

-YouTubers who share their expertise – There was a cushion on our basement couch that had lost a button and as a result was going all shapeless. After years of the Husband asking me if it was fixable, I finally decided that the misshapen pillow would not be worthy of our Super Bowl guests so I went to the craft store and bought upholstery needles. I still didn’t have much of an idea of how to fix this, so I turned the experts – YouTube to the rescue. I found a clear and simple tutorial on how to retuft a cushion and in less than twenty minutes, I had fixed the pillow and it was once again standing upright. I felt so accomplished. In the back of my 5 year journal I keep a list of new skills I learn each year. Button tufting is going on the list.

Sad shapeless cushion.
All fixed!

-Early release days for weather and being able to pick up my kid. I know not everyone can accommodate a last minute early release, so I’m really grateful that I’m in a slow period at work and that I could pick up the kid early when the school decided to close at 1pm for weather. We went to Trader Joe’s and even such a simple thing as running an errand, made for some great mommy-daughter time.

-Non-latex dishwashing gloves for my unfortunate combination of latex allergy and eczema.

-Remote start – I will be the first to tell you that I did not want an mini van. I still find it kind of scary to drive – it’s huge and I have no sense of where the rear end is. The thing is like driving around in a living room, seriously. BUT I am discovering many nice features, and this bitterly cold week, the remote start feature was amazing.

-International grocery stores and international communities. I wanted to make tikil goman (Ethopian cabbage, carrots, and potatoes) since we had cabbage and potatoes to use up. Meera Sodha’s recipe had instructions for a faux injera to eat alongside, and I was totally going to make that. But then I realized, “Wait, there is a a sizable Ethiopian population in our county. I should just get the real thing.” So I found an Ethiopian grocery store on the way home from Soccer Clinic and we picked up two packages of pillowy soft injera made fresh on the premises. It was delicious. We might have eaten half a package right out of the bag. How amazing it is to have so many international grocery stores in our area. (Also – I went down a rabbit hole reading Sodha’s column in the Guardian, The New Vegan. I want to make every recipe.)

The injera was still warm!

-The Kids’ Skating instructor. She is amazing and kind and works so well with the kids.

-The track at the 8 year old’s school. I haven’t been running, because of the cold, but there is a track at the elementary school, and one day after drop off I walked four laps while listening to my audiobook. I’m so grateful that these things are open to the public. I remember when I was little, my parents would take us to the high school and make us run laps, and I hated it, but you know… the older I get, the more I see that my parents were really on to something.

-That the car is okay. I went over a curb funny and suddenly there was this horrible scraping noise when I drove. I pulled over seriously panicking that I had done some serious damage and wondering when I was going to have time to take the car in. After looking under the hood and around the tires, and not finding anything I got down on my hands and knees and reached under the car to see if I could feel anything. Like a detached muffler. (Not even sure if that’s a thing or if I was looking in the right area for such a thing.). Then my hand felt a twig and I gave a large tug and out came a four foot long branch. Oh thank goodness. Problem solved.

-Carpooling to work with my friend and picking up Starbucks (her) and cheesy buns (me) on the way home. Letting her convince me to buy a jelly donut, which I immediately eat in three bites, covering myself with powdered sugar in the process. I don’t regret it at all.

Also this bumper sticker we saw on the way:

There was quite an eclectic collection of bumper stickers on this truck.

And Some Sick Week FIGS:
-Windows. Three days sick in bed can make one tired of staring at the the walls of one’s bedroom. Except there are windows in those walls. And through those windows I could still see sunlight and clouds and sunsets and beautiful skies.

-Mucinex – I don’t usually take drugs when I’m sick, but boy did I need it this time; I was so congested I couldn’t breath or sleep.

-Kleenex.

-Rice cakes, ramen, and soup. Making lunch seemed like an impossible task when i was sick, but I also don’t like being hungry, so I did manage to make some simple soups. One day it was ramen with a cabbage, and an egg mixed in. Another day, it was a riff of this (Rice Cake Soup with Bok Coy and Edamame), though instead of chicken broth I made a “broth” by using water with kimchi tossed in. And I added dandelion greens and ginger because that’s what I had. The hot spicy filling goodness what just what I needed.

-Audiobooks – I mentioned above that I’m a terrible sick person because I get bored easily in bed. I did watch Bridget Jones’s Baby, but too much tv made my head hurt. Audiobooks to the rescue. I checked out a few rom coms from the library and listened to them. I only half paid attention to them, but the soothing voices and just enough plot was enough to calm my brain.

-The thirteen year old – who took care of the kids on the snow days when I was sick. I’m pretty sure she made them lunch and hot chocolate and let them watch inane YouTube videos all day. I know she did make them go outside for a little bit and play in the snow. But the important thing is she kept them out of the bedroom where I was sleeping.

-The Husband – who made dinner and put the kids to bed and basically solo parented while I was in bed.

-That I’m healing. The second day of being sick, I thought some yoga might heal my congestion, so I went on YouTube and searched “Yoga when sick” and a 15 minute gentle yoga video came up. It was just the easy practice that I needed to stretch a little and breathe. At the end of the video, Sara Beth said something that really stuck with me:
“Instead of telling yourself ‘I’m sick, I’m stuffy, I’m exhausted, I’m miserable’, tell yourself ‘I’m healing.’”
What a wonderful, gratitude-filled way to frame being sick. Rather than focus on how awful I’m feeling, reminding myself that the fever and mucus are all signs that my body is well enough to fight whatever it is that has me down, and that I’m healing.

Looking Forward To – so ironically two of my “Looking forward to” things from last week did not happen because I was sick – I didn’t go contra dancing and we didn’t enjoy a cozy snow day – but I think there is still great value in giving ourselves things to look forward to:

-Getting back into a routine after being sick.

-Voice recital that I’m doing supertitles for this week. There’s some really great music on the program and I always have a really long dinner break when I do this gig, so I’m looking forward to a nice evening walk.

-Finishing this book on audio. This was one of the books I started when I was sick and it’s pretty cute – a bit gimmicky, but not annoyingly so. (I also started another book that wasn’t as interesting, but perfectly soothing in the moment. I probably wont’ finish that one.)

What We Ate:
Monday: Cheesesteak sandwiches, leftover from the Super Bowl

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. It’s getting to be a tradition. Chicken, shrimp, black beans, mango cabbage slaw, guacamole, salsa, pickled onions.

Wednesday: Sheet pan gnocchi with broccoli and cherry tomatoes. Vegan. (I think, though come to think of it, I’m not sure if we bought vegan gnocchi.)

Thursday: Noodles w/ tofu and mushrooms. The Husband made this. I couldn’t get out of bed to eat it that night, but I had leftovers on Saturday night and they were so delicious.

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and Skeleton Crew – the latest (I think) series in the Star Wars Franchise. This one stars a bunch of kids who seem to be very far from home. And Jude Law.

Saturday: The 13 year old’s sleepover. There was a lot of pizza (from Dominos), and chips. And Rainbow cake. We get this cake every year from our local deli/diner, which in turn get them from David’s Cookies. I ate leftovers from the fridge.

Sunday: Fend for yourself. I’m pretty sure the kids ate leftover movie popcorn and injera for dinner.

Hope you have a healthy week!

What are your go to comforts and cures when you’re sick? Who makes your face light up? Whose face do you make light up?